Syfy Gets ‘Happy’ on Augmented Reality

Syfy is promoting the December 6th release of new series Happy!with an augmented reality app that depicts the optimistic winged unicorn the show is named for. The app brings that unicorn to a user’s living room, ready to answer questions, perform tricks and (ahem) mess up your rug.

Released for iPhone and Android, the AR creature features the voice of Patton Oswalt, who also voices Happy in the series. “The brief for this wrote itself,” stated Syfy Digital SVP Matthew Chiavelli. “We’ve been happy with what we’ve been able to pull off with the tech.”

The NBCU-owned channel has designed the app for AR-enabled phones or Google’s ARCore so that Happy the unicorn can be customized, shared, respond to questions and perform dances or other responses.

HAPPY! is based on New York Times best-selling author Grant Morrison and Darick Robertson’s graphic novel of the same name. The series follows Nick Sax, played by Christopher Meloni of Law & Order: SVU, as a cop turned hitman.